


Sentinel-friendly Products

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Thursday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 04:28:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11913213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Blair is looking for sentinel-friendly products





	Sentinel-friendly Products

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sentinel Thursday prompt 'cough'

Sentinel-friendly Products

by Bluewolf

A sentinel! A real, live sentinel! And one, moreover, who had asked for his help!

Blair couldn't believe his luck.

All right, he didn't really know much about what a sentinel's partner actually did; Burton hadn't said much about them. Burton had really only been interested in the remarkable abilities of the sentinels - what they could _do_ \- and had totally played down their weaknesses. Although he had mentioned them, and a sentinel's need for a partner to watch his back because of them, Burton had covered the subject in just two or three almost throwaway sentences, a suggestion rather than the in-depth comments he had made on how much the sentinel's abilities benefitted his tribe. If Blair had been less enthralled by Burton's book (which he had found when he was thirteen) it would have been very easy for him to miss those few vague suggestions about the fact that a sentinel usually worked with a partner whose sole duty seemed to be to keep him from using his senses as totally as he was able to do.

But... there was in those few sentences the suggestion that a sentinel could lose touch with the outside world, if he was too intent on what he was sensing, and that was when the partner interrupted him. There was also a comment that there were some things no sentinel never ate.

That had puzzled Blair for a long time. He could understand someone not liking something, and so never eating it... but 'things _no_ sentinel ever ate'?

And then after he went to Rainier he had learned about food allergies, and guessed that there might be some kinds of food all sentinels were allergic to.

After he found people who had sensitive noses and taste buds and worked as tea or coffee blenders, etc, he tried to find people with a more acute sense of touch, better hearing, better eyesight. He did find one or two, and it was one of them, who suffered from contact dermatitis, that made Blair realize that sentinels might suffer from more than food allergies. An acute sense of touch could possibly give rise to a very allergic response.

So... maybe the partner also kept an eye out for things that might irritate his sentinel. Though there were unlikely to be many such things in the world where even nineteenth century sentinels lived.

But Blair - and his sentinel - were living in a more technological world than Burton knew, even when he returned home from one of his many trips into 'unexplored' territory. That drove Blair into checking the kind of thing that - in this more 'developed' world - might irritate his sentinel's senses.

He started by checking the ingredients listed on packets, something he had never bothered doing in the past; quickly learning that food packets often listed 'contains gluten, milk, nuts' - things that medical science had discovered caused allergies in some people - which reminded him of a packet of peanuts he had bought some months previously that had had 'contains nuts' in bold letters across the front. But Jim had no problems with milk or nuts or gluten as far as he could see. So... no food allergies. But he could well be allergic, or semi-allergic, to other things.

Things like chemicals.

Although there were relatively expensive products available - there were always some people who believed that 'high price' or a brand name automatically meant 'better' - many people thought a shop's 'own brand', that was invariably cheaper than the brand name version, was just as good and better value. For many people the cheapest available version of a cleaner was the obvious one to buy - but those usually included the harshest chemicals.

Blair was sure that Jim, as a detective, was reasonably well paid, and didn't have to lean on the cheapest available products - but he suspected that Jim didn't buy the dearest available cleaners either. He probably went for the 'middle of the range' items. But even they... were they totally safe for a sentinel?

He was beginning to realize just how much responsibility he had taken on with his facile 'I've love to!' when Jim, almost as casually, suggested that a partner would be someone 'like you'.

So here he was, standing in front of a row of shelves in one of Cascade's biggest supermarkets, doggedly reading through the 'ingredients' of all the tins and packets of cleaner, trying to determine which was likely to be least harmful to a sentinel's skin and - yes - lungs.

Behind him, he heard a gentle cough, and he looked around. A woman with a very full shopping cart was standing behind him.

"Oh - sorry!" he said as he realized she was wanting something from one of the shelves he was blocking. "My sister has a baby just beginning to walk, and she wants the least caustic cleaners I can find - she's afraid the chemicals in the cleaners might hurt little Jimmy if he caught at something she was in the middle of cleaning. So I'm having to read all the contents to try to work out the mildest that'll still do the job."

"I've found the dearest tend to be the mildest," she said, "though I'm not totally convinced they do as good a job as some of the mid-range ones."

"Thanks - I was beginning to think I'd have to go for some of the dearer ones," he said. "Glad to get confirmation. Well, I'll take a couple of the dearer ones, let Molly decide for herself which she prefers and if she thinks they're worth the money. Personally I think she'd be better to leave Jimmy with Mom, the days she wants to do a major clean - then she wouldn't have to keep worrying about him."

The woman grinned. "I'm just glad my kids are school age - basically it's a free baby-sitting service, even though they are learning while they're there."

"Never thought of it that way," Blair grinned back.

He let her take the items she wanted, then as she headed to the check-out he carefully selected the items he had decided were probably the most sentinel-friendly, and made his way to a different check-out. The last thing he wanted was to get involved in a possible conversation regarding his imaginary sister and nephew, or the value of schools...

 

 

 


End file.
